Friday, May 31, 2013

A lack of cultural trips for me means a 7-year-old guest blogger...

It's been over a week since I blogged and I do apologize. My life has been consumed with the launch of a photography business, and sports that require bats and gloves. The spouse had a team entered in the base's Memorial Day weekend softball tournament, so three of the four days he and the kids were off were consumed by games. The good news is that his team, The Reapers, did, in fact, win the tournament. Here's a shot I got of them:

This was also the last week of the boys' baseball season. Will's team was in the championship game last night.. and won. The Ligers are now the 10- to 12-year-old baseball champs on base... a very hard-won victory in a game that was often tied. They ended up winning 12-10.

Xan had his last game last night and made two outs at first base. Of course, no one keeps score at the 7- to 9-year-old level, so there wasn't any season standings. Xan, however, assured me that they won by a large margin last night.

I have not been on any culture trips the past two weeks and I am itching to get out and around Japan. The spouse assures me that Saturday afternoon is all mine to drag the family out to do some sight-seeing, so hopefully I will have something fun and interesting to blog about.

In lieu of my blogging, I had a volunteer blogger offer his services. Xan took my 5-year-old iPhone 3GS that is now his iPod on his class field trip to the aquarium on Miyajima. Here is a photo of the guest blogger on the trip today:

Xan had a tough time knowing what to write as he blogged, so we settled for an interview format as we went through the pictures that he snapped.

Me: What is this?

Xan: I don't know, but I found it interesting.

Me: Interesting, huh?

Xan: Yep.

Me: What about these guys?

Xan: I don't know. I guess they were interesting, too.

Xan: This is where you went in to the aquarium. See those penguins? Those are penguins.

Xan: These are the puffy things that stick to the wall and slurp up all the gross stuff. I got to pet a penguin.

Xan: Oh, no, wait. That's the slurpy thing. Those other ones are just little fish.

Me: Are these the penguins you got to pet?

Xan: Well, yeah, one of them. I think it was this one (pointing to the very back penguin under the spotlight). They told me his name.

Me: What was his name?

Xan: I forgot, but it started with a "Yo."

Me: What did the penguin feel like?

Xan: Um, what did the penguin feel like? You mean when I pet it?

Me: Yes

Xan: Well, it was calm, and very soft, and it felt like after you take a shower and your hair is comb-y.

Xan: Those are the penguins from when I shot like this (pretending to take a photo above his head.) They were above my head.

Xan: That's a seal. That wasn't part of the seal show.

Me: How was the seal show?

Xan: The seal did lots of tricks and whenever it came out it came out of the curtain things that are hanging up. So, it was pretty cool.

Me: What kind of tricks did it do?

Xan: It flipped through a hoop and it touched red balls that were hanging. It was pretty cool.

Xan: That is a baby seal in a cage. It was cute, too. I got to see it.

Me: Did you get to pet it?

Xan: No, but I did get to pet one of the seals in the seal show.

Me: And how was that?

Xan: It was cool.

Me: What did it feel like?

Xan: It was squeaking, but I didn't now what it felt like.

Me: It was making noise?

Xan: Yeah, it was barking, or going "erk-erk" so that was cool, too.

Xan: Those are sharks. I don't know what kind of sharks, but those are sharks.

Xan: That was a barracuda.

Me: Did you get to pet it?

Xan: Noooo... that was in water.

Xan: That's a ray and goldfish.

Me: Was the ray eating the goldfish?

Xan: No. If they are in the same tank then they don't eat them. The sharks had fish that they didn't eat, too.

Me: What is this a picture of?

Xan: A dolphin. You can't really tell that, but it is one.

Me: What's that black dot.

Xan: I don't know what the black dot is, but I am pretty sure it is a drain.

Xan: That is a picture of a dolphin skull. A dolphin body, basically.

Me: You mean a skeleton?

Xan: Yeah. And a kid got in my way.

Me: Did you like the skeleton?

Xan: Yes. Because I have never seen a dolphin skeleton and I am glad that I saw it now.

Xan: That's not an octopus, but a squid. A squid and fish.

Xan: This was like a small tank and you get to take pictures behind it and my friends were, like, ducking down so that we could get out of the way. And that was a lot of fun, too.

Me: What kind of fish are those?

Xan: I don't remember but they looked like Nemo.

Me: Clown fish?

Xan: Yeah, clown fish.

Xan: Those were a lot of fish. I don't know what they're called, but there were over 100 in there.

Xan: You get to see the fish that are under, but I took a picture of them, but on top it looked like it was a forest. And it was cool.

Xan: Those were a ray in water that had seaweed in it and there were fish in there, too, hanging on to the seaweed.

Me: So those aren't oysters?

Xan: No. I'm pretty sure that was seaweed.

Xan: This is a picture of my friend and me on a bench and we're by a tree and all that. And we were walking to the bus to get back to school.

Me: So, is that the Torii Gate behind you?

Xan: Yes. That is the Torii Gate

Me: So would you recommend this trip to other kids?

Xan: Yes, and I hope they have fun, too. My favorite thing was when the sharks didn't eat the fish and I was surprised that they didn't either.

So, where did this "tenacious" description come from?

Since college, whenever a male supervisor or colleague disagreed with me, the (printable) description that seemed to be used the most often to describe me was "tenacious." I found it odd that completely unrelated people would come to the same conclusion on multiple occasions over the course of a decade. The word choice was not meant as a compliment and I still have no idea why. In my opinion, tenacity is a delightful thing to have (see the definition above) and I am happy to have it. So, to conclude this correspondence, I sign off with: